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"Unless anyone has had a different experience"

I've tried classroom instruction, and teacher-driven courses, multiple times in my life. They never really stuck for me.

Duolingo has worked for me where other techniques haven't. I'm now at a stage where I can read a newspaper article in Spanish and understand ~90% of the content.

(5 year streak, but that's 5 years of 5-15 minutes a day which turns out to be exactly the commitment that works for me.)

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For comparison, I taught myself Spanish with paper flashcards I wrote, and a grammar book and I was at a similar stage after 5 months. 3 hours effort per week approx so a bit more than you.

If I had the discipline to do it I'm sure I could get further with other techniques, but for me the biggest feature of Duolingo is the way you don't need very much discipline at all to make progress with it.

"You don't need very much discipline" and "5 year streak". Sorry, but is my definition of discipline that off? You managed to have 5 years of discipline. That's the reason you managed to learn a language, not because the duolingo gamishittification does miracles.

The gamification is what helped me make it this far. Remembering to pop open an app for a few minutes on your phone takes so much less discipline than any other form of language learning I've tried in the past.

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